British GQ - 09.2019

O

n paper, there’s not much to suggest that the exper-

iment should be the first step towards humanity’s

destruction. High over the New Mexico desert, a

repurposed balloon similar to those used by Nasa will float

to an altitude of about 20km and release a payload. Scientific

balloons can lift up to 3,600kg – the weight of three small

cars – but in this instance, the cargo will be minuscule by

comparison: first, a small volume of water, then, on a later

trip, sulphates. The goal? To increase the density of parti-

cles in the clouds below, making them more reflective and

bouncing solar radiation back into space. In other words, to

dim the sun. Proponents of the experiment suggest it might

be the first step in developing technology that could save

the lives of tens of millions. Its detractors, however, predict

it could kill or displace just as many.

The experiment, known as Scopex (Stratospheric Controlled

Perturbation Experiment) is being designed by scientists at

Harvard and is awaiting review from an external advisory

committee before it launches its first-phase $3 million

(£2.3m) test. With financial backing from Bill Gates, it will

be one of the first real-life experiments to emerge from the

untested field of geoengineering – the sketchy science of

deliberately interfering with the earth’s climate. Ever since

it became apparent that perilously little action was being

taken to reduce global carbon emissions, a growing number

of scientists around the world have advocated opening the

Pandora’s Box that is man-made climate intervention. And

Harvard’s not the only institution getting involved; in March,

Cambridge University announced a proposed Centre For

Climate Repair, headed by the chief scientific advisor to three

British governments, Professor Sir David King, to look into

radical ways to blunt the now-inevitable climate catastrophe.

These solutions typically range from the noncontro-

versial (technically, reforestation counts as man-made

climate intervention) to the radical – “greening the ocean”

Story by Thomas Barrie

DETAILS FUTURISM

by dumping tonnes of iron filings, to spur the growth of

phytoplankton, or sprinkling billions of silica beads over a

Belgium-sized section of the Arctic, to make the ice more

reflective. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum falls

solar radiation management (SRM, or cloud brightening),

the Scopex approach, which might just be the most feasible.

B

y no means is there consensus on how brightening

should, or could, be done. King opposes the release of

stratospheric sulphates as anything but a last resort,

because they might damage the tentative recovery of the

ozone layer, but he is keener on a similar alternative: marine

cloud brightening (MCB). First conceived by the physicist

John Latham in the early noughties, MCB proposes spray-

ing a super-fine mist of seawater into the air over the ocean

to increase cloud density – a natural, cheaper and mobile

alternative. Professor Stephen Salter of the University Of

Edinburgh, who worked with Latham, estimates that for

around £90m per annum, a fleet of autonomous “spray

vessels” built to his design could sail across the oceans where

needed, sucking saltwater out of the sea and spraying it sky-

wards to increase cloud density. Kelly Wanser, whose NGO

Silver Lining advocates for cloud brightening, claims that a

total increase of one per cent brightness could offset 2C of

warming. King, Salter and Wanser believe that the technology

could buy the world the 30-odd years needed to go fully

carbon neutral. “[It] could protect the coral reefs that are

dying,” says Wanser. “It could protect forests and ecosystems

and species that will otherwise be devastated by the heat.”

Despite the enthusiasm in the scientific community, Al

Gore has called geoengineering “delusional in the extreme”.

In 2010, the UN Convention On Biological Diversity

announced a moratorium on all large-scale geoengineering

experiments that could impact the environment.

Spearheading opposition to SRM is the ETC Group, a watch-

dog and pressure group that has released statements in the

past denouncing geoengineering as “a techno-fix” for climate

change. Its co-executive director, Jim Thomas, believes that

talk of man-made intervention “is a political strategy to try

to change the way in which the debates on climate change

happen”. The point, he says, is not whether SRM might work

• he thinks it would – but that it distracts from real efforts
  to reduce carbon emissions and the knock-on effects would
  harm the globe’s poorest, whether through chance or design.
  What’s more, Thomas says, geoengineering has a history
  of military application dating back to the Vietnam War. He
  points to a massive project on the Tibetan Plateau named
  Sky River, which is being carried out by a Chinese aero-
  space contractor on behalf of the military and involves
  lighting thousands of industrial burners on contested ter-
  ritory to manipulate precipitation. At the moment, the
  geoengineering arms race is a metaphorical one between
  scientists, start-ups and philanthropists, but it’s not hard to
  see the military advantage of a technology that could cause
  a massive spike in rainfall, or indeed a targeted drought.
  Proponents of cloud brightening plead realpolitik, arguing
  that humanity has no alternative but to test them. “We
  don’t know yet whether or not these things are possibili-
  ties,” Wanser says. “If we don’t look at them fairly soon,
  then we won’t have these options available.” King agrees:
  “We have already destroyed our environment. We need
  these new technologies or, frankly, we are cooked.”

To STOP this, scientists

want to DIM THE SUN

It sounds like science fiction – and it’s certainly risky –

but it may be our best bet...

Dry run

During the

2008 Olympics,

the Chinese

government

used a similar

technique to

cloud brightening

to “seed” clouds

with silver iodide,

causing them to

burst before they

could rain on the

Olympic Village.

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